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Interindividual variability in the regulation of the human stress system accounts for a part of the individual's liability to stress-related diseases. These differences are influenced by environmental and genetic factors. Early childhood adversity is a well-studied environmental factor affecting an individual's stress response which has been shown to be modulated by gene environment interaction (GxE). Neuropeptide Y (NPY) plays a role in stress regulation and genetic variation in NPY may influence stress responses. In this study, we analyzed the association of a common variant in the NPY gene promoter, rs16147, with cortisol and ACTH responses to acute psychosocial stress in young adults from the Mannheim Study of Children at Risk (MARS), an ongoing epidemiological cohort study following the outcome of early adversity from birth into adulthood. We found evidence of a GxE interaction between rs16147 and early adversity significantly affecting HPA axis responses to acute psychosocial stress. These findings suggest that the neurobiological mechanisms linking early adverse experience and later neuroendocrine stress regulation are modulated by a gene variant whose functional relevance is documented by increasing convergent evidence from in vitro, animal and human studies.
Im Rahmen eines explorativen Vergleichsuntersuchungsplans wurde untersucht, inwieweit sich die durch biologische Faktoren bedingte unterschiedliche Lebenserfahrung sowie die Sozialisationsbedingungen in der psychosexuellen Entwicklung bei hetero-, homo- und postoperativen transsexuellen Männern (N = 191) auf die Integration der Geschlechterstereotypen in die kognitiven (Selbst-, Fremdwahrnehmung), emotionalen (Selbst- und Fremdbewertung) und verhaltensmäßigen Aspekte (Normen der geschlechtsspezifischen Verhaltens) der Geschlechtsidentität auswirken und ob sich Identifikationsmuster der Entwicklung des geschlechtlichen Selbstkonzepts ableiten lassen. Die Messung der kognitiven Aspekte des geschlechtlichen Selbstkonzepts (Maskulinität und Femininität) erfolgte mittels der GERO-Skala von Brengelmann und Hendrich (1990). Zur Erfassung der emotionalen Aspekte und Identifikationsmuster der Entwicklung des geschlechtlichen Selbstkonzepts wurden die Werte für die Variablen Maskulinität und Femininität zuerst mittels der computergesteuerten Methodik IDEXMONO und IDEXIDIO, die auf der Identitätsstrukturanalyse (Identity Structure Analysis) von Weinreich (2003) basiert, aufgearbeitet und weiter interferenzstatistisch ausgewertet. Weiterhin wurden der Fragebogen zur Messung normativer Geschlechtsrollenorientierung (NGRO) von Athenstaedt (2000) sowie ein ad hoc entworfener demographischer Fragebogen eingesetzt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der Verlauf der psychosexuellen Entwicklung einen starken Einfluss auf die Integration der Geschlechterstereotypen in die geschlechtliche Selbst- und Fremdwahrnehmung hat. Im kognitiven Bereich, bezogen auf die persönliche Identität (Grad der Selbstzuschreibung männlicher und weiblicher Merkmale), stellt die Maskulinität eine stabile und erstrebenswerte Variable zur Herausbildung des geschlechtlichen Selbstkonzepts bei allen Gruppen dar. Die Femininität trägt am meisten zur Differenzierung zwischen den Hetero-, Homo- und Transsexuellen bei. Sie wird, je nach der Entwicklungsphase, unterschiedlich in das geschlechtliche Selbstkonzept integriert. Hinsichtlich der sozialen Identität (Zugehörigkeitsgefühl) lassen sich die Gruppen bezüglich der wahrgenommenen Ähnlichkeiten sowohl mit männlichen als auch weiblichen Personen, je nach der Entwicklungsphase, unterscheiden. Die soziale Wahrnehmung von Männern und Frauen (Fremdwahrnehmung), ist bei Transsexuellen traditioneller als die der Hetero- und Homosexuellen. Bei der Selbst- und Fremdbewertung ergaben sich keine signifikanten Unterschiede. Bei der Internalisierung der sozialen Normen des geschlechtsspezifischen Verhaltens zeigt sich, dass Heterosexuelle der Ausübung der Geschlechterrollen gegenüber egalitärer eingestellt sind als Trans- und Homosexuelle. Bei den Sozialisationsfaktoren ist hervorzuheben, dass generell weibliche Identifikationspersonen einen stärkeren Einfluss auf die Herausbildung des geschlechtlichen Selbstkonzeptes hatten als männliche Identifikationspersonen. Es scheint jedoch, dass Homosexuelle bei der Entwicklung ihres geschlechtlichen Selbstkonzepts stärker unter dem Einfluss der Frauen stehen als die anderen zwei erforschten Gruppen. Zur Beantwortung der Frage, welche selbstkonzeptbezogenen Variablen und Entwicklungsfaktoren die größte statistische Bedeutung für die Trennung und Prädiktion der einzelnen untersuchten Gruppen haben, wurde eine Diskriminanzanalyse berechnet. Die größte diskriminatorische Bedeutung besitzen die Variablen „Stereotypische Wahrnehmung der männlichen Personen“ und „Ego-Involvement mit weiblichen Personen“ für die Diskriminanzfunktion 1 (Trennung der Transsexuellen von Hetero- und Homosexuellen) und die Variablen „Empathische Identifikation mit männlichen Personen in der Vergangenheit“ und „Zuwachs an empathischer Identifikation mit weiblichen Personen“ für die Diskriminanzfunktion 2 (Trennung der Hetero- von Homosexuellen).
Work-related behavior and experience patterns of entrepreneurs compared to teachers and physicians
(2011)
Purpose This study examined the status of health-related behavior and experience patterns of entrepreneurs in comparison with teachers and physicians to identify specific health risks and resources.
Methods Entrepreneurs (n = 632), teachers (n = 5,196), and physicians (n = 549) were surveyed in a cross-sectional design. The questionnaire Work-related Behavior and Experience Patterns (AVEM) was used for all professions and, in addition, two scales (health prevention and self-confidence) from the Checklist for Entrepreneurs in the sample of entrepreneurs.
Results The largest proportion of the entrepreneurs (45%) presented with a healthy pattern (compared with 18.4% teachers and 18.3% physicians). Thirty-eight percent of entrepreneurs showed a risk pattern of overexertion and stress, followed by teachers (28.9%) and physicians (20.6%). Unambitious or burnout patterns were seen in only 9.3/8.2% of entrepreneurs, respectively, and 25.3/27.3% of teachers, and 39.6/21.5% of physicians. While the distribution of patterns in teachers and physicians differed significantly between genders, a gender difference was not found among entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs with the risk pattern of overexertion scored significantly (P < 0.01) lower in self-confidence and health care than those with the healthy pattern.
Conclusions The development of a successful enterprise depends, in part, on the health of the entrepreneur. The large proportion of entrepreneurs with the healthy pattern irrespective of gender may support the notion that self-selection effects of healthy individuals in this special career might be important. At the same time, a large proportion was at risk for overexertion and might benefit from measures to cope with professional demands and stress and promote a healthy behavior pattern.
This study analyzes the interplay of four cognitive abilities - reasoning, divergent thinking, mental speed, and short-term memory - and their impact on academic achievement in school in a sample of adolescents in grades seven to 10 (N = 1135). Based on information processing approaches to intelligence, we tested a mediation hypothesis, which states that the complex cognitive abilities of reasoning and divergent thinking mediate the influence of the basic cognitive abilities of mental speed and short-term memory on achievement. We administered a comprehensive test battery and analyzed the data through structural equation modeling while controlling for the cluster structure of the data. Our findings support the notion that mental speed and short-term memory, as ability factors reflecting basic cognitive processes, exert an indirect influence on academic achievement by affecting reasoning and divergent thinking (total indirect effects: beta=.22 and .24. respectively). Short-term memory also directly affects achievement (beta=.22).
Synchronization transitions in coupled time-delay electronic circuits with a threshold nonlinearity
(2011)
Experimental observations of typical kinds of synchronization transitions are reported in unidirectionally coupled time-delay electronic circuits with a threshold nonlinearity and two time delays, namely feedback delay tau(1) and coupling delay tau(2). We have observed transitions from anticipatory to lag via complete synchronization and their inverse counterparts with excitatory and inhibitory couplings, respectively, as a function of the coupling delay tau(2). The anticipating and lag times depend on the difference between the feedback and the coupling delays. A single stability condition for all the different types of synchronization is found to be valid as the stability condition is independent of both the delays. Further, the existence of different kinds of synchronizations observed experimentally is corroborated by numerical simulations and from the changes in the Lyapunov exponents of the coupled time-delay systems.
Previous studies provided evidence of the claim that the prediction of occluded action involves real-time simulation. We report two experiments that aimed to study how real-time simulation is affected by simultaneous action execution under conditions of full, partial or no overlap between observed and executed actions. This overlap was analysed by comparing the body sides and the movement kinematics involved in the observed and the executed action. While performing actions, participants observed point-light (PL) actions that were interrupted by an occluder, followed by a test pose. The task was to judge whether the test pose depicted a continuation of the occluded action in the same depth angle. Using a paradigm proposed by Graf et al., we independently manipulated the duration of the occluder and the temporal advance of the test pose relative to occlusion onset (occluder time and pose time, respectively). This paradigm allows the assessment of real-time simulation, based on prediction performance across different occluder time/pose time combinations (i.e., improved task performance with decreasing time distance between occluder time and pose time is taken to reflect real-time simulation). The PL actor could be perceived as from the front or back, as indicated by task instructions. In Experiment 1 (front view instructions), evidence of action simulation was obtained for partial overlap (i.e., observed and performed action corresponded either in body side or movement kinematics), but not for full or no overlap conditions. The same pattern was obtained in Experiment 2 (back view instructions), ruling out a spatial compatibility explanation for the real-time pattern observed. Our results suggest that motor processes affect action prediction and real-time simulation. The strength of their impact varies as a function of the overlap between observed and executed actions.
The claim that focus evokes a set of alternatives is a central issue in several accounts of the effects of focus on interpretation. This article presents two empirical studies that examine whether this property of focus is independent of contextual conditions. The syntactic operation at issue is object-fronting in German, Spanish, Greek, and Hungarian licensed by contexts involving focus on the object constituent. This operation evokes the intuition that the fronted referent excludes some or all relevant alternatives. The presented experiments deal with the question whether this interpretative property obligatorily accompanies the operation at issue or not. The empirical findings show that in German, Spanish, and Greek this intuition depends on properties of the context and is sensitive to the interaction with further discourse factors (in particular, the predictability of the referent). Hungarian displays a different data pattern: our data does not provide evidence that the syntactic operation at issue depends on the context or interacts with further discourse factors. This finding is in line with the view that evoking alternatives is inherent part of constituent-fronting in this language.
Saccades move objects of interest into the center of the visual field for high-acuity visual analysis. White, Stritzke, and Gegenfurtner (Current Biology, 18, 124-128, 2008) have shown that saccadic latencies in the context of a structured background are much shorter than those with an unstructured background at equal levels of visibility. This effect has been explained by possible preactivation of the saccadic circuitry whenever a structured background acts as a mask for potential saccade targets. Here, we show that background textures modulate rates of microsaccades during visual fixation. First, after a display change, structured backgrounds induce a stronger decrease of microsaccade rates than do uniform backgrounds. Second, we demonstrate that the occurrence of a microsaccade in a critical time window can delay a subsequent saccadic response. Taken together, our findings suggest that microsaccades contribute to the saccadic facilitation effect, due to a modulation of microsaccade rates by properties of the background.
In alphabetic writing systems, saccade amplitude (a close correlate of reading speed) is independent of font size, presumably because an increase in the angular size of letters is compensated for by a decrease of visual acuity with eccentricity. We propose that this invariance may (also) be due to the presence of spaces between words, guiding the eyes across a large range of font sizes. Here, we test whether saccade amplitude is also invariant against manipulations of font size during reading Chinese, a character-based writing system without spaces as explicit word boundaries for saccade-target selection. In contrast to word-spaced alphabetic writing systems, saccade amplitude decreased significantly with increased font size, leading to an increase in the number of fixations at the beginning of words and in the number of refixations. These results are consistent with a model which assumes that word beginning (rather than word center) is the default saccade target if the length of the parafoveal word is not available.
In alphabetic writing systems, saccade amplitude (a close correlate of reading speed) is independent of font size, presumably because an increase in the angular size of letters is compensated for by a decrease of visual acuity with eccentricity. We propose that this invariance may (also) be due to the presence of spaces between words, guiding the eyes across a large range of font sizes. Here, we test whether saccade amplitude is also invariant against manipulations of font size during reading Chinese, a character-based writing system without spaces as explicit word boundaries for saccade-target selection. In contrast to word-spaced alphabetic writing systems, saccade amplitude decreased significantly with increased font size, leading to an increase in the number of fixations at the beginning of words and in the number of refixations. These results are consistent with a model which assumes that word beginning (rather than word center) is the default saccade target if the length of the parafoveal word is not available.
The present study investigated whether visual and kinesthetic stimuli are stored as multisensory or modality-specific representations in unimodal and crossmodal working memory tasks. To this end, angle-shaped movement trajectories were presented to 16 subjects in delayed matching-to-sample tasks either visually or kinesthetically during encoding and recognition. During the retention interval, a secondary visual or kinesthetic interference task was inserted either immediately or with a delay after encoding. The modality of the interference task interacted significantly with the encoding modality. After visual encoding, memory was more impaired by a visual than by a kinesthetic secondary task, while after kinesthetic encoding the pattern was reversed. The time when the secondary task had to be performed interacted with the encoding modality as well. For visual encoding, memory was more impaired, when the secondary task had to be performed at the beginning of the retention interval. In contrast, memory after kinesthetic encoding was more affected, when the secondary task was introduced later in the retention interval. The findings suggest that working memory traces are maintained in a modality-specific format characterized by distinct consolidation processes that take longer after kinesthetic than after visual encoding.
A Video-Based training method for improving soccer referees' intuitive decision-making skills
(2011)
We present a video-based online training-tool (SET, for Schiedsrichter-Entscheidungs-Training, in German) for improving soccer referees' decisions. We assume that referees' decision-making in contact situations mainly relies on intuitive processing. For improving intuitive decisions, feedback on the correctness of decisions is essential; explanations are not required (Hogarth, 2008). Referees participating in SET watch videos, make decisions, and receive feedback. Evidence of the training's effectiveness was obtained in two experiments with soccer players and expert referees. Immediate feedback on the correctness of decisions without further explanations was sufficient for increasing decision accuracy. Results illustrate that SET is a promising tool for complementing referees' training.
Evidence from animal research has revealed that less maternal care results in disturbed emotionality in the offspring. In the present study, the long-term impact of maternal responsiveness and stimulation during early mother child interaction on depressive psychopathology was examined until adulthood. Data are from an epidemiological cohort study of the long-term outcome of early risk factors assessed at birth. At age 3 months, mothers and infants were videotaped during a nursing and playing situation. Maternal responsiveness and stimulation as well as infant responsiveness were evaluated by trained raters. At age 19 years, 314 participants (145 males, 169 females) were characterized on measures of depression through interview and questionnaire. In addition, measures of depression and anxiety were available from assessments in childhood. Results indicated that less maternal stimulation during early interaction was associated with a higher risk of depression in the offspring until the age of 19 years. In addition, children of less stimulating mothers showed more depressive symptoms at age 19 years and displayed more anxiety and depressive symptoms between the ages of 4.5 and 15 years. In contrast, maternal responsiveness was unrelated to children's outcome. In accordance with findings from animal research, the present study provides first longitudinal evidence in humans of a continuous and long-term influence of early maternal interaction behavior on the offspring's psychological adjustment until adulthood. The results suggest that the amount of maternally initiated contact behavior in a very early developmental stage may be crucial for children's mental health, regardless of child and maternal responsiveness.
Miniature eye movements jitter the retinal image unceasingly, raising the question of how perceptual continuity is achieved during visual fixation. Recent work discovered suppression of visual bursts in the superior colliculus around the time of microsaccades, tiny jerks of the eyes that support visual perception while gaze is fixed. This finding suggests that corollary discharge, supporting visual stability when rapid eye movements drastically shift the retinal image, may also exist for the smallest saccades.
The present study investigates diagnostic skills of German teachers in estimating basic reading capacities of sixth graders and the way they relate to achievement heterogeneity of the judged student group and to students' language background.
The data were obtained from a sample of 39 German teachers and their classes in the context of the Berlin Longitudinal Reading Study. Judgements on different levels were analysed (achievement of sixth graders in general and of individual students). Diagnostic skills were investigated using different indicators: the personal judgement error and tendency and the accuracy in identifying achievement differences between individual students (rank component). The accuracy in estimating reading capacities of students with and without a different language background was investigated by means of achievement level matched pairs.
The outcomes indicated, among others, an overestimation of students' general achievement level and on average an acceptable accuracy in identifying achievement differences between individual students. They showed equal difficulties in judging performances of students with and without a different language background.